A special needs woman was locked on a bus for seven hours after the coach was parked at an isolated yard.

The boss of a centre for adults with special needs today apologised for the blunder which left the distraught young woman trapped in the remote yard.

She was meant to be dropped off for the day at the MooreHaven Centre in Tipperary town but failed to get off the bus with other passengers.

The driver did not notice she was still on the vehicle when he drove it back, parked and locked it at the garage at Limerick junction 5km away.

The woman remained there and was only found seven hours later when the driver came back to collect the coach.

Chairman of the MooreHaven centre, Denis Kennedy, admitted it had been an “unacceptable lapse” on its part.

He said changes in their procedure were being implemented to make sure a similar incident can never happen again.

He told RTE’s Morning Ireland: “She was picked up near her home and arrived at MooreHaven.

“The bus wasn’t checked to ensure that everyone had disembarked and unfortunately she was left on the bus.

“So there were two failures. One was that the bus wasn’t walked if you like and checked after the passengers disembarked.

“Secondly, the centre did not have a procedure in place to check that everyone who had got on the bus actually arrived safely at the centre which obviously is a serious gap and a major lapse on our part.”

The woman was very distressed by her ordeal which took place on May 27, but is due to return to the centre today.

Staff at MooreHaven did notice that the woman was missing but they took it for granted that she was ill or had not attended the centre for some other reason.

Mr Kennedy said that in future buses arriving at the centre would be thoroughly checked to make sure all the passengers get off.

He also revealed that staff would contact the families of those who failed to show up on their appointed attendance days.

He added: “If we get something wrong we hold our hands up. In retrospect, looking back, these were serious gaps.

“Thankfully over the years they haven’t caused a problem of this magnitude. On this occasion a serious problem did arrive.”